


Kiss of Mercy

by fannishliss



Series: Jewish Coën [2]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Jewish, Angels, Cherubim, Destiny, Guardian Angels, Headcanon, Jaskier is a bard and he Needs to Know, Jewish Coën, Jewish Identity, Kabbala, M/M, Origins, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, The Witcher Lore, Thrones, blasphemy not intended, no beta I live and so does Coën
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:53:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29465316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fannishliss/pseuds/fannishliss
Summary: Jaskier gets the secrets of the Griffins out of Coën.
Relationships: Coën/other, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Jewish Coën [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2164371
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Kiss of Mercy

**Author's Note:**

> No one asked for more of how Coën Walks with an Angel, and yet, here it is. :)  
> Happy International Fanworks Day!

“I don’t understand,” Jaskier said, as they sat in Kaer Morhen, around the fire. 

“Ask your question,” Coën replied with a gentle smile. 

“You speak of your lineage,” Jaskier said carefully. “Yet, you are a Witcher.Pardon me, my good friend, I don’t wish to allude to certain painful facts…” 

“You can’t see how a lineage could flow out of a people who are not only chaste, but sterile,” Coën said.His smile had become almost a grin. 

“Yes, quite,” Jaskier said, blushing.He himself was decidedly neither, yet he had gone to great pains to avoid spreading his seed across the Continent in the manner of his namesake, the blown flower. 

“Kaer Seren was like and yet very unlike Kaer Morhen,” Coën began. “A keep, high on a mountain— higher even than this — full of Witchers, a proud and storied school… but with one great difference — we were blessed by our god, part of a greater story of a chosen people.” 

Geralt shifted in his seat beside Jaskier.Lambert had already left with a huff, off to find his Cat, when Jaskier began asking questions, Vesemir was resting with his eyes closed near the fire, and Eskel kept a face of stone when he felt like it — but Jaskier knew how sceptical the Wolves were of the Griffins, even as Geralt secretly admired the strict ethics of their Code. 

Jaskier and Geralt had seen with their own eyes the mystical creature that followed Coën, guarding the Griffin, “lest he dash his foot against a stone,” Jaskier said in a flight of fancy. 

Yet Kaer Seren had been ruthlessly annihilated, and not a trace remained of that school, save for Coën on his solitary Path.What kind of destiny or proof of divine favor was that terrible destruction? 

Coën was no mindreader, but he had no need of a Wolf’s nose to detect Jaskier’s disbelief. 

“I can do no less and no more than tell you my story, friend Bard,” Coën said. “You may sing of it, if you wish, though few on this dark Continent will find it of interest.” 

“Please,” said Jaskier.Geralt pretended he was a reading a book, but Jaskier could feel his Wolf’s metaphorical ears pricking up. Eskel was working with wool, hands deft and busy, but he was paying close attention. Vesemir, who well knew the long history of Witchers, much of it first hand, gave nothing away from his chair by the fire. 

“Long ago,” Coën began, “the universe was without form, all chaos—“ 

“—as the mages teach, from the Elven lore?” Jaskier interrupted. 

“mm,” Coën demurred. 

Geralt scowled and gave a low rumble deep in his throat. 

“Sorry.” Jaskier mimed locking his lips. 

“Our god, the nameless, the Highest, the One God, moved, and light and form flowed forth as a mighty wind, as a gentle breath, and the wing of our god hovered over us and brought us into being.” 

Jaskier’s eyes shone as he soaked up the poetry of it.As a devotee of Melitele (if he were a devotee of anything outside his own pleasure) his own temple lessons had taught him that the stars were the milk spraying forth from Her tits, and the earth the clots that seeped from between Her thighs.It was a good story, as far as the bard was concerned. 

“There are many worlds,” Coën said, “many spheres, some higher and closer to god, some lower and closer to the primeval chaos.It is not a punishment to live in this low, violent world, but a challenge.”

Jaskier had sat through many an hour at Oxenfurt debating such questions, in classrooms, drawing rooms, bars and bedrooms.Jaskier was a hedonist, drawing pleasure from creativity and company.His own powers were his greatest friends, and there was no pain he could not transmute into beauty (or at least, inspiration for the darker threads of his art). Biting his tongue, he tamped down on his constantly rampant musings and let the Griffin go on. 

“As Griffins, we were chosen from out of our already chosen people — not by Destiny, not by chance, but by our god. So we believed, and so I have lived my life.It was a carefully hoarded secret of my school, but no matter any longer — fewer than one in a dozen of my kind died in the Trials.” 

From the fireplace came a great indrawn breath, and a long, sad sigh. 

“This is why the Mages wrought their terrible vengeance upon us. They were not welcome at Kaer Seren, and they were not part of our transmutations.We, Witchers only, raised up our younglings, training them carefully, screening them out if need be.There was no shame on one who turned aside when asked the Question.” 

Eskel’s brow of stone briefly twitched. The Wolves asked the Question — all Witchers did —but no wolf trainee could imagine saying no.

“Our people rejoiced when one of their own was Called.No babes were taken before they were weaned, but when they could walk and had their teeth, their families brought them to us.” 

“I have blood relations living,” Coën added. Geralt frowned outright at this.Lambert’s family ties had brought him nothing but pain and grief, and Geralt’s recollections of Visenna had caused him lifelong heartache.“By tradition we do not spend a night under their roof, but we are not forbidden to know their names or even break bread with them.” 

Vesemir coughed, a disapproving sound, but said nothing. 

“At any rate, to answer your question, Jaskier, my lineage is twofold: first, as a Griffin, I know the names of my sponsors going back to the founding of our school. Not so many, in all, since our lives are so long, and we have not been many centuries in this world, after all. But the lineage of my human family was taught to me, and I bear it, alongside my cousins, in whom it continues, back through the mists before the Conjunction, and into the future unseen by any but the Highest.”

Coën made the little nod he always made when mentioning his god. 

Jaskier was quiet, dreaming of such a lineage, that stretched back to the origins of humans on another world.At Oxenfurt, a narrative such as Coën’s would be debated hotly by scholars, compared to the traces remaining of tales taken down after the chaos and destruction of the Conjunction, the shreds of old knowledge human beings had brought with them from their former world, concepts that no longer carried any relevance, names for things that no longer existed in this new world, and words applied to new referents.It boggled the mind to think of a heritage that made claims about that first home of humanity. 

“So your parents just — sacrificed you to the Griffins?” Jaskier said. 

His own parents, minor nobles, had always been dissatisfied with their Julian, scattered, fanciful, flighty Julian, never sitting still, never keeping quiet, never where he was meant to be, passionate and loud, and always in a scrape.It had been no sacrifice for them to denounce him and set him free. Jaskier owed them his gratitude for his education, his good looks, his manners, and most of all, for letting him go.

“I was kissed,” Coën said. “My family rejoiced, and my mother raised me to weaning and gave me up.” 

Geralt gave the little sneeze he sometimes gave when he didn’t understand, when something made even less sense to him than this ridiculous world usually made. 

“Kissed?” Jaskier asked. 

“My throne,” Coën said, in a reverent yet happy tone.“Ze let zirself be seen by you, and so I may speak of zir to you.” 

“Ohhhh,” Jaskier said, with a shudder. _The creature_. 

Jaskier had seen the thing, with its faces and wings and tentacles of light.Beautiful, yes — but fearsome, and too bright to look upon.His eyes had seen spots for days.Was every Griffin caught up by one of those things? 

“Ze came to me in my cradle,” Coën said with a smile.“My mother saw me laughing at the shadow of zir wings.” 

All at once, Jaskier saw it.The Griffins were not named for the rapacious winged lion things that hunted the peaks of this world and were hunted in turn by Witchers — they were named for those creatures, whose wings and golden-eyed faces were otherworldly, terrifying shapes of rainbow light. 

“Even among Griffins I was blessed,” Coën said.“My teachers saw it, and demanded perfection from me, and I swore to achieve it.They taught me to obey my throne without question — as I did when ze woke me and drove me out of the keep, with my kit on my back, three nights before the destruction.” 

Jaskier had a brief chill of horror, wondering if the Griffins had walked their Path, enslaved to these things. He was shaken from his dark thoughts by Geralt’s cough of discomfort at Kaer Morhen's own pogrom.

“There’s no shame in survival,” Vesemir rumbled, the gruffness and pain in his voice belying his words. Eskel and Geralt quietly huffed in unison, soothing themselves with Vesemir’s mantra, decades old by now. 

“Hear the truth from your own mouth, old Wolf,” Coën said gently, but with authority.“My people have gone to their maker — just as yours have gone to feast in the halls of their heroes.” 

Jaskier sat still, lost in thought.That vast, uncanny creature, that he had seen with his own eyes, had chosen Coën from the cradle and doomed him to life as a Witcher — had driven him out of the Keep to save him from the destruction of the only family he’d ever really known? Could that be called love? Was that a kiss?

“Was that a kiss?” Jaskier murmured, under his breath — but of course Coën heard him. 

“To be known like that, down to the atoms—known from the womb, known as from Chaos you were formed, and loved like that, fearfully and wonderfully — it is a kiss beyond any you can imagine…” Coën sighed. 

Jaskier yearned to understand.“I think I understand,” the poet said slowly.

“Walk in love,” Coën said, quietly. “Walk humbly, in love, doing justice, for the rest of your life, and then, god willing, you will understand.” 

Geralt nodded, and Vesemir, and Eskel all nodded, and for Jaskier, that had to be enough. 


End file.
